Image quality is key when it comes to making accurate diagnosis and confident clinical decisions. Learn how the importance of certain criteria such as luminance, ambient lighting and automated calibration play a crucial role in image reading accuracy. Workflow benefits include increased physician productivity and reduced IT intervention.

In today's healthcare environment, there's no question that the need to connect silos of data, whether department or enterprise wide, has become an increasing demand placed on IT infrastructures.

Lifespan is a five-hospital system in Providence, R.I., managing more than 500,000 radiology and cardiology exams per year. To balance the image management needs across departments, meet the daily demands of access to full clinical information across their health system with an eye on future participation in the Accountable Care initiative, Lifespan is embarking on a multi-year journey to leverage IT infrastructure as a strategic asset and utilize a combination of an enterprise vendor neutral archive coupled with archive neutral PACS for radiology, cardiology, endoscopy and other departments.

Radiologists are clinicians consultants. We direct clinical management based on our expert interpretation of patient images. Yet, in many cases, radiology reports may not reflect our clinical expertise. Common problems include overuse of vague terminology and omission of the impression. Addressing these flaws can go a long way toward meeting clinicians needs and improving patient care.

More facilities have turned to virtualization and cloud data storage as part of the comprehensive disaster recovery plan.

In the era of health IT and meaningful use, many providers are looking for a one-stop shop to house all their cardiovascular reporting needs. However, in terms of the cardiovascular information system (CVIS), most users reported that their system was only 65 percent complete, and most are still looking for an all-in-one solution to meet their needs, according to an October KLAS report titled, Will the Complete CVIS Please Stand Up?

Amirsys and the College of American Pathologists (CAP) have formed a new partnership to jointly develop online educational products for pathologists.

Armstrong County Memorial Hospital in Kittanning, Pa., has selected DR Systems' Unity CVIS to meet its cardiology department's CVIS needs.